• The French side have won all three of their games in this season's group stage, including a 2-0 defeat of the Portuguese champions on Matchday 3 thanks to goals from Jimmy Briand and Lisandro, to open up a three-point lead in the standings. Having also lost at FC Schalke 04 in their second game, SL Benfica are in third position with three points.

Match background• In nine home fixtures against Ligue 1 visitors in UEFA competition, Benfica have won five and drawn four. They were held 1-1 at home by Olympique de Marseille in last season's UEFA Europa League round of 16 first leg, Maxi Pereira's 76th-minute strike cancelled out by Hatem Ben Arfa in the 90th minute. The Portuguese side then won 2-1 in France, Pereira again scoring their first goal.

• Of their four previous games in Portugal, Lyon have lost two and won only one, a 1-0 victory against SC Farense in the 1995/96 UEFA Cup first round.

• Benfica, who are striving for a place in the knockout rounds for the first time since 2006, began with a 2-0 defeat of Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC but came unstuck on Matchday 2 in Germany when Schalke scored two second-half goals without reply.

• Lyon's designs on making progress to the knockout rounds for an eighth successive season got off to a winning start courtesy of Michel Bastos's first-half strike against ten-man Schalke. They then travelled to Israel where Bastos was twice on target in a 3-1 win at Hapoel, Miralem Pjanić scoring the third.

Team ties• Pablo Aimar was in the Valencia CF team that beat Marseille 2-0 in the 2003/04 UEFA Cup final in Gothenburg.

• Lisandro scored three times against Benfica during his four years with FC Porto between 2005 and 2009.

• Pereira was in the Uruguay team that earned a 0-0 draw against France in the 2010 FIFA World Cup group stage. Jérémy Toulalan, Yoann Gourcuff and Hugo Lloris were all on the opposing side with Anthony Réveillère an unused substitute.

• It was also 0-0 between Brazil and Portugal at the World Cup. Bastos was on duty for the South American team, as was Luisão, while Fábio Coentrão played for Portugal and Ruben Amorim was on the bench.

• Nuno Gomes scored for Portugal against France in the UEFA EURO 2000 semi-final in Brussels. France came out on top however thanks to Zinédine Zidane's extra-time penalty.

• Claude Puel's LOSC Lille Métropole team won 2-0 at UD Leiria after extra time to win their final of the 2004 UEFA Intertoto Cup by the same aggregate scoreline. The following season Lille and Puel lost 1-0 in Lisbon against Benfica on Matchday 1 of the UEFA Champions League. Jean Makoun played in all four games for Lille.

• Javier Saviola came on as a half-time substitute in FC Barcelona's 2-1 home win against Lyon in the first group stage on 10 October 2001.

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